TOPICS OF THE - DAY.
MR. BALFOUR AS A NEW PROTECTIONIST.
MR. BALFOUR, considered as a party leader, has managed his crisis with great adroitness, though not, we fear, with equal wisdom. He has rid the Unionists of the unbearable burden of food taxes, which would have crushed them at the polls, but in doing it he has pronounced himself a New Protectionist, one who will tax anything imported except food and raw materials. It is perfectly clear from the statement in the Standard, and from the publication of Mr.
We have little doubt that this programme will draw votes. The British manufacturer is, like the rest of his countrymen, a fighting man ; he will dearly like the prospect of " hitting back " at his American or German competitor ; and he may not perceive either that the resolute foreigner may go on. raising his tariff till, as we must also raise ours proportionately, the point of prohibi- tion is reached, and trade extinct, or that his 'Protection is really a fine upon his customers, who, being impoverished thereby, will endeavour to buy less. But we would ask the consumer, if he also is in any degree taken in, to reflect before he accepts the programme, and to ask Mr. Balfour distinctly what his weapon will be. He gives no hint in his pamphlet-manifesto ; but clearly he must make one of three proposals. The first is permission to deal with the foreigner by negotiation. We do not like commercial treaties, because they destroy our freedom of adjusting taxes ; - but as- Parliament must accept or-reject each treaty, Balfour's pamphlet-manifesto, that the strongest party in the Cabinet which assembled on Monday agreed to " postpone indefinitely," that is, to abandon, the proposal of preferential duties because they involved taxes on corn and meat. The " great policy of binding the Empire together by links of gold "—that is, in plainer English, by bribes extracted from the British working man, who spends one half of his earnings on food, and cannot reduce the pro- portion—is to be forgotten, and with it what a mass of eloquent pleading for a false, because an artificial, Imperialism ! Mr. Balfour, who, one must not forget, is Prime Minister, in his subtly reasoned and artistically worded pamphlet never even alludes to taxes on food, and passes over the Colonies with the merest expression of a far-away hope that an attempt may one day be made, " gradually and tentatively," to make trade with them as free as it is between the States of the American Union. Mr. Chamberlain, now that he is freed from Ministerial responsibility, will doubtless proclaim his own policy in his own speeches, but the Head of his Majesty's Government has issued a programme with that policy left out. He, too, wants Protection, but for a new reason. He does not want tariffs, as the Old Protec- tionists did, in order to repair the losses of the landlord, or to encourage the farmer, or to raise up the down-trodden agricultural labourer, but solely in the industrial interest. He wants only the means of compelling the foreigner to reduce his tariffs on British manufactured goods. That foreigner is continually taxing them, he may some day tax them out of existence, and the Government ought to be provided With a weapon to prevent him. At present we have only persuasion, which, says Mr. Balfour, most truly, is of no use. If there is any- thing which an American monopolist, or a German Agrarian, or a French vine-growing peasant, or a Russian producer of wheat • does not believe in, it is " sweet reasonableness " in fixing the scale of his protecting tariff. What does it matter to him who suffers so long as he is safe from competition, and able to exact a bounty as well as the market price from all who consume his wares ? It is therefore necessary for the sake of the future—Mr. Balfour quite admits that we are prosperous at present—that we should be able to coerce foreign Governments into fiscal modera- tion. At present we are unarmed, and we must arm our- selves either with Protective duties, or with legal powers of putting them on, iri order—let exulting manufacturers re- member—that when the obstinate foreigner, at last con- vinced by blows, gives way and reduces his tariffs, we may take them off again. that objection may be waived. Only, if it is negotiation he is planning, we must perforce wonder what all the fuss is about. Subject to ratification by Parliament, the Government can already make any treaties it pleases, and no more needs preliminary sanction in dealing for tariffs with Berlin or Washington than it did in deal- ing with Tokio for a defensive alliance Lord. Lans- downe may set his clerks to work to-morrow on any commercial treaty he pleases, and if it is a good one, will receive almost unlimited praise. The second plan is to invest the Government with the power of raising or lowering duties by Orders in Council, which would, of course, invest it with the endless means of bargaining for which it sighs. We doubt whether the British people will give any Government whatever so tremendous a means of fostering or shattering any in- dustry, even though they are as sure as we are that it would always be honestly employed. There have been stupid Ministers, even in the Foreign Office and at the Board of Trade ; and the fear of surprises would be a little too much for the nerves of the average investor in industrial undertakings. He will prefer to be asked his consent before he is subjected to a shock,—say, for a childish example, the sudden taking off of a duty on Danish butter in order to induce the Danes to import freely of British broadcloth. The butterman with contracts over half a county made on the faith of the Protective duty would scream loudly if that happened, and the butterman is no more selfish than any other importer. The third plan, and the one, we fear, which floats before Mr. Balfour's mind, is to put on Protective duties, so raising a large revenue, and then offer the foreigner to take them off in consideration of similar concessions. The foreigner will laugh at him. He is not keeping up his high tariff in order that he may create a foreign trade, but in order that he may have a monopoly of the home market, may, that is, tax his own people to make himself rich. Just listen to the Agrarian of Germany, the most consistent Protec- tionist in the world, and see if he has any other motive. The consumer, then, is to consent to see everything grow dearer around him in order that by and by the competition of the foreigner may in certain trades grow a little lighter. He has no certainty that it will so grow, for the moment a Protective duty is put on, great interests spring up behind it, the money it produces is appropriated for old-age pensions or what not, and it is speedily found that to re- duce the tariff at the point required would " dislocate too many businesses, and injure too many important classes." Whoever benefits—and no doubt the capitalist manufac- turer may in certain cases benefit greatly—the consumer creates that benefit out of his own means. Whether the bounty is spent in retaliation or otherwise, it is that luckless person who always has to pay it.
We say nothing, though we wonder Mr. Balfour does not, of the international anger and friction which this policy would cause, the chronic alarm with which it would be viewed by both the statesmen and traders of the world. The former pardon our perpetual expansion in territory and influence because we at least keep the door open for all mankind, whether they be enemies or friends, dreaded rivals or beaten competitors ; the latter see that our competition is always fair. Our readers may, however, remember the intense hostility provoked on the Continent by the McKinley Tariff, and the statement of the Austrian Chancellor, Count Goluchowski, that it would shortly be necessary for Europe to form a coalition against the " American peril." It is Free-trade, not a high tariff, which protects our Empire from the envious, against whom, if their envy became active, we must otherwise protect ourselves by a conscription. That, however, is not an economic argument; and to-day we are content with 'showing that. Mr. Balfour's pamphlet, though it indicates a readiness to abandon taxes on food at the popular bidding, is the manifesto of a convinced, though very cautious, Protectionist.
Previous page
